Betfair’s annual profit beat expectations after last year’s World Cup helped the online bookmaker increase customer numbers by more than half.

Earnings before interest, tax and other items for the year to 30 April rose 32% to £120m. The result outstripped increased profit guidance issued in March of between £113m and £118m.

Befair increased its full-year dividend by 70% to 34p.

Its chief executive, Breon Corcoran, said the World Cup in Brazil last summer attracted new customers, many of whom then placed bets on the Cheltenham festival and the Grand National.

Active increased by 52% to 1.7 million, with most new punters opting for fixed-odds bets. Betfair then offered them other products, leading to a 20% increase in new customers on its exchange gambling marketplace and a 74% rise in first-time players of poker and other games.

Corcoran said: “The financial year started with the World Cup, which allowed us to engage with many new and existing customers and gain trading momentum. This carried on throughout the rest of the year. We are successfully executing our strategy and achieving profitable scale in sustainable markets.”

Betfair’s main business is the exchange, which lets gamblers bet against each other in real time instead of accepting the bookie’s odds.

The company rebuffed a takeover by CVC, the private equity firm, in 2013 soon after Corcoran took over as boss. He cut costs, concentrated on markets where regulation was unlikely to spring surprises and introduced fixed-odds bets to tempt first-time users.

Betfair’s share price has soared over the past two years from 937p to a record £26.66 this month. Some analysts think the shares are now overpriced and that the valuation does not take account of competition from rivals such as William Hill and Sky Bet. The shares were down 2.5% to £24.52 in early trading.